


only the meek get pinched (on the cheek)

by genericlesbian72



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - High School, Beards (Relationships), Bev Enables His Shitty Fashion Sense, Bev is Not Good at Feelings, Broken Bones, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Ferris Bueller's Day Off AU, Gay Disaster Richie Tozier, Gay Richie Tozier, Homophobic Language, M/M, Mostly Gay Angst, Paul Bunyan statue but he's cool, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier has Terrible Taste in T-Shirts, Road Trips, Skipping Class, Slurs, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Teenage Rebellion, doctor visit, mild amounts of angst, teenagers making bad decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24079528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genericlesbian72/pseuds/genericlesbian72
Summary: Sometimes skipping school for a day trip can have unexpected resultsOr: how Eddie staying behind in Derry made Richie lose his mind, how the best girlfriend in the world might not be enough and how Portland, Maine needs to get some more tourist attractions.
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 21
Kudos: 76





	1. if anybody needs a day off, it's eddie

**Author's Note:**

> this is very loosely based on Ferris Bueller's Day off because the vibes are impeccable 
> 
> first fic! hoping to publish on a semi-regular schedule as something cute while I work on my lesbian losers horror monstrosity 
> 
> many thanks to my betas!!

Some days you can just tell are going to be momentous.

Still, it wasn’t as if Richie Tozier knew that when he woke up. As he drove to school, all he could feel was a familiar twitchiness. He tapped along to the radio on the steering wheel, unsure of what was getting him so jittery.

_ Danke schoen, darling, danke schoen _

_ Thank you for seeing me again _

_ Though we go on our separate ways… _

Abruptly, he cut the radio off as he jerked his car into a haphazard park job behind the dingy brick building that housed the fine young men and women of Derry for most of their waking hours. In a scant few weeks, it would release onto the unsuspecting world the graduating class of Derry Secondary School 1994. 

Richie continued to hum the song to himself as he made his way over to the dark corner of the parking lot where one Beverly Marsh was smoking. She had cut her brilliantly red hair again and the faint glow of it almost matched the end of her cigarette. 

“But soft! Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” Richie said, a setup without a punchline. He was too distracted making grabby hands at Bev’s cigarette until she let him steal it.

“I’m good, Trashmouth,” she said, lighting another one. Bev had been his girlfriend since the start of the school year, which had entitled him to many stolen cigarettes, weed, and even sips of the flask she had snuck in for the pep rally. She was the coolest person he had ever met. She looked it too, with outfits that were sometimes dismissed as ‘unique’ but more often than not came off as effortlessly stylish. Unlike Richie, who had yet to make his dad’s old collection of Hawaiian patterned shirts work for him. His glasses probably didn’t help. 

“Nice day out.”

As he peered up at the sky, Richie had to agree. It was early, but there were no clouds in the sky and the air was heavy with the promise of some real warmth later to chase away the New England chill. 

“Way too nice to stay indoors,” he sighed. The thought of school made the itch return to his fingertips, the need to do something, go somewhere. He just didn’t know where yet.

But it was a school day, so they eventually trudged inside to meet the regular river of people pressing up against the lockers to avoid getting knocked into. 

But something was different. 

“Where’s Eddie?”

Eddie Kaspbrack always waited for them by his locker. He was completely unwilling to join in with their pre-school smoking ritual, claiming that he didn’t hate first period calc enough to risk an asthma attack. 

But today, there was a distinct lack of his favourite itty-bitty future stepson by their lockers, just Bill Denbrough putting away one of his trash paperbacks. They had just seen Eddie last night for a bonfire at Mike’s, so this was weird.

“Oh you know,” Bill said, rolling his eyes, “Mike said that Eddie’s mom called this morning to yell about how Eddie came home from curfew too late and now he’s got, like, pneumonia or something. So he’s home sick.”

Richie groaned. This was a familiar story and a frustrating one. A full school day already sounded like hell to him and one without Eddie? So, so much worse. Who would he make faces at to keep himself awake? Who would he partner with in chem and see if they could make anything explode? Who would try not to laugh at his whispered jokes until his face got all red?

This was unacceptable. 

But it did give him an idea. 

“So Eddie’s already skipping…” he said slowly, turning towards Bev.

Immediately, she grinned. “And it’s such a lovely day…”

Bill smiled, stepping back away from where he was leaning against the locker, “I’d love to join you, but I’m giving Georgie a ride home today.”

“C’mon, Billy,” Richie whined, “we can be back by the end of the school day!”

“I don’t trust either of you two. You’re going to end up driving to Portland or something.” 

Bev’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to check out the second hand shops.”

He couldn’t say Portland had been his original plan. But his original plan had been to sneak into the movie theatre all day, so this was definitely better. “Big Bill, you’re a genius.”

Bill made a face, like he always did when Richie called him that, but it was neither as cute or aggressive as Eddie got when Richie called him nicknames so it was easily ignored.

“Okay,” Richie clapped his hands together, “who else? Homeschool? Stanny? Handsome?”

“Well,” Bill said casually, looking up at the clock, “Stan has a group presentation in AP Civics today, so he’s out.”

“Staniel never wants to do anything fun anyways—”

“Ben has shop and he likes that one enough not to skip,” Bill continued, talking over Richie, “and Mike has to help clear out the barn for the harvest after school.”

As always, Bill’s memory of what exactly all their friends were doing was both useful and creepy. 

“But that’s okay, I’m sure Eddie won’t mind third-wheeling. See you tomorrow!” Bill called over his shoulder, running off as the bell rang. 

Beside him, Bev snorted like something was funny. 

“He won’t,” he insisted to her, although he was now thinking of the way Eddie sometimes got a funny look on his face whenever he and Bev sat next to each other. And that he had come up with excuses to get out of any hangout that was just the three of them. 

Eddie was many things, but he wasn’t all that subtle. 

It made sense. None of them had really been in a relationship before and it must be weird to see two of his friends dating. Even if Richie and Bev weren’t really into PDA (or private DA if Richie was being honest). 

But still, this was Eddie Spaghetti! He’d absolutely be down for a life-changing road trip.

~

“Absolutely not,” Eddie said flatly, not even bothering to get out of his massive pile of blankets. 

“Eddie,” Richie whined, rubbing the sore spot on the back of his head. Gaining a foot and a half and what felt like four extra limbs during puberty had made climbing through Eddie’s window much harder. “It’s not like you have anything better to do.”

Eddie stubbornly pulled his duvet tighter around him, “I’m sick. I need to stay home when I’m sick. And rest.”

“Bullshit. You’re not sick.”

“Oh, you’re a doctor now?”

“Eddie,” Richie said, trying on a patient voice. “your mom pulls this shit every time she’s mad and I’m sorry, I tried, but I don’t think my dick will calm her down this time,” he paused, predictably, to dodge the pillow Eddie threw at him, “so why don’t you just admit you feel fine and come to Portland with us.”

Eddie glared at him but refused to answer. 

With a deep sigh, Richie got up and made his way across the bedroom. Eddie didn’t move, looking up at him with wide eyes and Richie had to push down how it suddenly felt like his heart was beating too fast. 

Carefully, he pressed the back of his hand to Eddie’s forehead. No fever. All he felt was cool, soft skin. Eddie breathed out slowly, dark eyes still trained on Richie and they were close enough that he could almost lean down to bury his nose in his hair—.

Richie stepped back, trying not to let the sudden panic reach his face. “No fever, Eddie buddy,” he chirped, his voice a bit too high, “I haven’t finished medical school yet but my diagnosis is that you’ll live.”

Part of Richie wanted to burrow closer, like acknowledging that touching Eddie had gotten weird in the last few years was a final goodbye to their childhood full of half-giddy wrestling and clambering over each other for no reason. 

The rest of him had a sense of self-preservation. 

Eddie’s cheeks had gone faintly pink but his voice was still even,“Fuck, fine, okay. Why not.”

Richie could have cheered, but that would have definitely brought Eddie’s mom barrelling in. He knew Eddie would say yes— he always did— even if he thought Richie was being stupid. And if he had really wanted to avoid a sick-day kidnapping, he would have locked his window. 

“Okay, okay,” Richie bounced on the balls of feet, unable to keep the smile off his face, “grab your fanciest fanny pack, Eds, Bev’s going to call your mom and I’ll start barricading the door.”

Richie waved two fingers out the window, which was Bev’s cue to call from the nearby payphone and keep Mrs. Kaspbrak on the line as long as she could with concerns about how ‘Eddie must be  _ so _ sick, I’m so worried about his health and how that’s affecting his  _ education _ , Sonia, I can bring him his homework after school and check up on him, I hope he didn’t pass anything on to me last night’ which was a great strategy because out of all of them, Eddie’s mom hated Beverly Marsh with a frothing passion. 

Well. She hated Richie too, but that was a different kind of frothing passion. 

Meanwhile, Richie was busy intricately piling clothes and pillows under Eddie’s blanket to act as a makeshift body. Next step was jamming the hinges so the door wouldn’t open wide enough for his mom to actually make it through and check on him. 

“I can’t believe you don’t have a lock, Eds, how do you...?” And here Richie made an obscene gesture around crotch level. 

Eddie didn’t miss a beat, rolling his eyes and tossing back, “I don’t know, why don’t you ask your sister?”

This was not their first Eddie-kidnapping, so to speak. So by the time Mrs. Kaspbrak’s volume had risen to the point where they could clearly hear her calling Bev a ‘filthy, dirty whore’, Richie, Eddie, Eddie’s well-stocked emergency bag had already wiggled out the window, tiptoed around to the front of the house and sprinted down the street to Richie’s car. By the time Mrs. Kaspbrak had slammed the phone down, Bev had joined them, breathless with laughter. 

With any luck, they would be halfway to Portland by the time she thought to check on him. And Richie truly, deep down, believed that he could never run out of luck on a day like this. The sun was blazing down on them, his best girl was leaning up from the back seat to turn up the radio and Eddie, his best friend, was in his passenger seat looking bright-eyed and free from anything that could drag them down. 


	2. a man with priorities so far out of whack

“I can’t believe you’re eating that,” Eddie said, his mouth curled in disgust.

Richie tried his best to look dignified, but it was pretty difficult to do when his cheeks were stuffed up like a chipmunk.

Valiantly, he made a series of noises that Eddie evidently knew him well enough to translate as “what exactly is wrong with the delicious snack I, with true culinary genius, have dreamed up on this beautiful day?”, because he rolled his eyes.

From the driver’s seat, Bev laughed.

It was her fault, anyways. The gas station had had an impressive amount of snacks for something in the middle of fuck nowhere and he’d be damned if he was going to turn down a challenge from her. Even if that challenge had just been her sidling up to him holding Dunkaroos and beef jerky and raising her eyebrows.

They had been limited by funds and the short amount of time it would take for Eddie to finish getting gas and come in to catch them, but by the time they climbed back into the car they had a small pile of junk food cradled in their arms, all ready to be mixed into revolting flavour combos.

Except it was Bev’s turn to drive.

So Richie was steadily eating through the whole pile by himself.

Eddie watched, looking like he might puke as Richie delicately poured more Dr. Pepper into the off-brand orange soda and dunked his salt and vinegar chip into the cup. Chewing, he held out the chip bag as an offering and Eddie immediately took one to dunk in the Dr. Pepper-Coke-Orange Soda mixture.

Richie felt something clench in his chest at the familiarity. Eddie was just like him in that he could never turn down a dare.

Right on cue, Eddie made a face and stuck out his tongue with an exaggerated ‘blegh’ noise revealing how green his mouth had gotten from the sour candy Richie had tossed over.

Sour candy was Eddie’s favourite.

“Don’t ralph in my car, dude,” Richie said, shoving another chip in his mouth.

“I’m sorry, who was it that puked all over Jenny Cressly’s new sweater in the seventh grade?”

“That,” Richie pointed an accusing finger at him, “was not my fault. And I thought we were never speaking of it again.”

“Her face, though,” Bev said cheerfully.

Mollified, Richie passed her the M’n’Ms.

It didn’t feel long at all before the endless trees of the highway started to bleed into the edges of the city. Richie felt a weird sense of dismay, even if Portland had been the whole point of it all. It was just that inside his car, bickering over the radio and passing snacks back and forth with Bev and Eddie, he felt relaxed in a way he so rarely was.

Still, his legs were not made for long car trips. So as soon as Eddie expertly parallel parked he was bounding out like an overexcited dog, stretching up with an exaggerated groan.

The smell of salt in the air felt positively invigorating. Richie was bouncing on the balls of his feet by the time his friends were ready to go, Eddie with his fanny pack and Bev with her pink sunglasses.

Bev insisted on the second-hand store first. The shop they found was eclectic to say the least. Mixed in with the clothing racks and free-standing curtained circles that served as ‘changing rooms’ were random milk crates of books, zines, and records. Richie idly flicked through a box of old Spider-Man comics before going to join Eddie.

While the downstairs and front area was just racks on racks of colourful clothing and what seemed like Halloween decorations (unless the cobwebs and skeletons were real) at the back of the second level there was a little nook with old armchairs and a TV from the fifties. It was playing, inexplicably, what seemed to be Beverly Hillbillies in black and white with the sound off and French subtitles.

Richie dropped in the armchair next to Eddie, sinking deep into the sagging cushion. “Regretting taking German this year, Spaghetti?”

“ _Non, je ne regrette rien,_ ” Eddie said in a sing-song tone, “and you taking French is cheating.”

Richie shrugged with one shoulder, idly following along with the text on the screen. “Not my fault if the teacher assumes this trashmouth is limited to one language.”

“Stan’s going to kill you if you get Valedictorian over him.”

He made a derisive noise. “I think you’re just jealous they don’t offer Polish.”

“Who else would take fucking Polish?”

Richie grinned, knowing a set-up when he saw one. “Me, so I can talk dirty to your mom—”

One of the massive cushions hit him in the face.

Eventually, Bev came and found them. She was carrying a milk carton of clothes for her, Richie and, to what seemed like his surprise, Eddie.

Eddie may have gotten a pair of soft, worn red runners shorts and a couple decent polos but Richie got the worst t-shirts Bev could find so really, he felt like she loved him more.

“Hey, Eddie,” Richie said, “which shirt do you think your mom would be more likely to jump my bones in?”

He held up two shirts, one with large lettering saying TIRED OF GETTING over a cartoon man with a screw sticking out of him. The other one had a Tweety-bird biting into a bowling pin under CHEW UP THE PINS AT LANTANA LANES.

“I think she’d like this one best,” Eddie said, holding up a red shirt that proudly declared it was from LAKE ORION LIONS VISUALLY IMPAIRED CAMP.

“Yowza! Eds gets off a good one,” Richie snatched it out of his hands, “but I think I don’t need a shirt, she’s a sure thing.”

“I don’t know why you keep going after Mrs. Kaspbrak when you’ve got such a wonderful sugar mama,” Bev said as she passed over the required wad of cash for the haul. Richie kissed his girlfriend on the cheek with an exaggerated smack in thanks.

“Where to next?” Eddie asked as Richie took the paper bag of clothes away from Bev. She could barely see over it and the last thing he needed was for her to go trip over a bridge.

“Art museum?’ Bev suggested, shaking out her fingers.

It was only a few blocks away from the museum that Richie suddenly remembered something.

“Oh, shit.”

“What?” they both turned to look at him.

“Eddie…” Richie said slowly, “do you remember the class trip we took in the ninth grade?”

Eddie squinted up at him. “The one where you almost drew on a painting with a sharpie and the security guard had to tackle you?”

“The one where I got a lifetime ban?”

There was a pause.

Bev sighed, “Fuck, trashmouth, I was hoping to do something classy if we were going to skip school all day.”

“In my defense,” Richie raised his hands against the force of Eddie’s glare-suppressed-grin combo, “I wanted to see what Bill’s face would do.”

And Eddie had stopped paying attention to his statue imitations in favour of talking with Bev. Looking at their heads pressed together had made him feel jealous enough to do something stupid.

Richie did not, thankfully, have a lifetime ban from the boardwalk along the beach. And even if ‘beach’ was generous— it had more rocks than anything resembling sand— there was still the bright sun, the wind and the rhythmic sound of the waves crashing against the land.

“Bev seems to be having fun,” Eddie said, watching his feet dangle over the water.

Richie turned his head. Farther down, almost at the shore, she appeared to be chasing seagulls.

“Oh yeah,” he agreed, “she’s a regular bird terror. Stan would be appalled.”

“It was nice of you to plan this for her,” Eddie said softly, still looking down.

He had the split second thought of _but this wasn’t for her_ before ruthlessly shoving it down.

Richie hated it whenever Eddie had to stay home from school. It was mostly selfish, yes, but he didn’t deserve to be by himself in the suffocation of that house. He deserved a day like this, under the blue skies. He deserved some sort of freedom, even if it had to be coaxed out the window.

Richie knew Eddie’s chances for days like this were numbered.

And he knew well enough that he didn’t drive to Portland for Bev. But acknowledging that, even to Eddie, made Richie want to puke.

“I can’t believe you didn’t get a lobster roll with me,” Richie said instead, taking a large bite.

“I’m allergic to shellfish,” Eddie replied, frowning.

“Lobsters aren’t shellfish.”

“What are you talking about? They are absolutely are, asshole, they literally have shells, every time you open your mouth you demonstrate why we should fund public schools more—”

“And,” Richie said, speaking over him before Eddie could pick up some real steam, “you’re not allergic to shellfish.”

“I definitely am.”

“You definitely are not. I’ve seen you eat shrimp. Remember that birthday party for Eleanor Hart in the second grade when Stan was so upset that he couldn’t eat it because her mom would be mad? You spent the whole party sneaking it off his plate when she wasn’t looking.”

“Sometimes people can develop allergies later in life,” Eddie said, but even he didn’t sound convinced.

“Ever taken an allergy test?”

Eddie was silent.

“Eds,” his voice softened, blending into the sound of the waves in the background, “why do you keep letting her do this to you?”

“I’m not-” his face was tight. “She’s just trying to keep me safe.”

“ _Eddie-_ ”

“And it’s not like I have a choice,” Eddie’s voice raised because for as long as Richie has known him he has always chosen fight over flight. That’s the main difference between them. “What’s the fucking point of starting this now? She’s going to be all I have in September, when you all are gone, when you and Bev are in fucking Chicago. It’s going to be me and her forever and there’s nothing I can do about it so why bother fighting it?”

Richie was rarely speechless. Comfort had never been his strong suit and as much as the fact hurt more than anything, all the days spent together wouldn’t stop them from being separated.

He slowly, carefully, started to reach for Eddie’s hand on the boardwalk between them. His fingers were splayed and golden in the sun and every inch between them suddenly felt like an affront. He reached out—

“‘Sup fuckers!” Bev called cheerfully from a few feet away. Her hair was windswept, her cheeks red and she was smiling hugely. “I caught a seagull!”

“Good job, babe!” Richie called down, turning back to Eddie, but the moment had already broken. Eddie visibly swallowed down whatever emotion had broken through in favour of pasting on a small smile.

“C’mon, Richie,” he said as he stood up, “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> francophone richie best richie


	3. one of the worst performances of my career and they never doubted it for a second

The Portland lighthouse was an old-looking structure apparently secure enough to allow anyone with three dollars and working legs to climb to the top and look out over the endless ocean. 

It was also much taller up close than it seemed from the street. Richie was craning his neck up to see to the top when a guy around their age wandered over to him. 

“Nice shirt,” the stranger said with a grin.

Richie looked down. He was wearing one of his new shirts from the vintage store under his Hawaiian print button up, with a faded picture of David Hasselhoff giving double finger guns between DON’T HASSLE and THE HOFF!

“Thanks. My girlfriend bought it for me.”

“Is that her?” he said, jerking a thumb at Bev. She was talking to Eddie, too far away to be heard.

“Yeah,” Richie didn’t like the surprise in his tone.

“Huh. Good job, man. She’s hot,” he said and the casual way he was speaking about her made Richie like him even less. 

“Back off, dude.”

“Alright,” the guy put his hands up, placating, “didn’t mean anything. Just saying props on the location. Girls think the top of lighthouses are super romantic. Mine let me feel her up right by the windows.”

Richie was quite certain he was going to be sick. “Dude, I really don’t want to hear about your exhibitionism. Or voyeurism. Or anything to do with your sex life; it sounds horrific at best. God knows sex with your mother is.”

And maybe he shouldn’t have opened his mouth because now the guy looked like he was going to punch him. Luckily, that was when Eddie yelled over that they were going inside.

Richie, maybe a little more quickly than normal, made his escape. But he wasn’t too far away to hear the muttered reply of “dickless fag.”

That jolted him, even if it was far from the first time he’d heard it. 

“You okay?” Bev asked as he got closer, while Eddie gave him a concerned look.

“Yeah, fine, let’s go in.” And Richie knew he sounded abrupt but he didn’t feel like doing a voice to cover it up. 

It turned out that getting to the top of a building meant to warn off boats from ramming into the shore meant climbing a metric fuckton of stairs.

“They really should install an escalator,” Richie complained, only a little breathless after what felt like an eternity walking one of those ‘endless staircases’ thought experiments. 

Bev reached behind her to pat his cheek but missed and smacked his glasses. “Aw, honey, I don’t think you’re cut out to be a lighthouse keeper.”

In front of her, Eddie snorted. “He’d go crazy within the hour and burn the whole thing to the ground.”

Richie had to admit, the idea of being isolated with only himself for company sounded a bit like hell. Alone, in a desolate location, forgotten…

He shivered and the revulsion of that image propelled him up the rest of the endless stairs. 

The view from the top was pretty spectacular. 

One side was the same shops and streets they had just walked down, but the other side was the bay. The deep colour of the ocean blended in with the lighter blue of the sky. Fluffy clouds floated by, still visible overhead. If Richie craned his neck, he could see the rocks of the shore, accepting the crash of the waves in a pattern that was almost soothing to watch. 

“Hey,” he said softly to Eddie. He was clearly awestruck by the view and took a second to turn his big, dark eyes back to Richie. 

Richie leaned in closer. “I bet I could find some way to spit off of here.”

Eddie rolled his eyes with such dramatics that Richie couldn’t help but smile.

The asshole had been right: it was romantic up at the top. The noise of the city below was gone, leaving the whole atmosphere quiet and peaceful.

Eddie had turned back to look at the waves. The glow of the sun through the floor-to-ceiling windows softened his lines. It made Richie feel like how he did when he watched old taped shows from the 1950s, like he was watching something golden and untouchable. 

Something deep in the marrow of him ached.

Richie turned away. As quickly as he could manage, he inched around the lamp to the other side. 

Bev was staring straight down, forehead pressed against the glass. The vibrant redness of her hair also caught the light, but she hurt less to look at. 

Standing beside her, Richie pressed his forehead right next to hers. 

“The ocean looks so peaceful from up here,” Bev said softly. 

“Yeah, anything looks peaceful from this high up.” There had been a sign with the height of the lighthouse near the entrance, but Richie couldn’t be fucked to remember the number right now.

“I think I see my mom, in the clouds,” Eddie said distantly. There was something in his tone that made Richie worry, but it was suddenly hard to move as he stared straight down at the rocky shore. 

There was silence for what felt like a long time. Probably the longest Richie had ever been silent around either of them. 

It was too much. He closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of the rocks and the waves. In the silence, the imagined sounds of the waves replaced with the ringing sound of  _ fag. _

Not from the asshole down on the ground, but from the dozens of assholes he had heard it from since before he hit puberty. It had started when he was far too young to know what it meant and he always wanted to ask if it was something about him. If there was an indicator, in the way he dressed, the way he talked, the way he used to hold Eddie’s hand when they were in kindergarten. If that had branded him for life. 

It had gotten easier when he started dating Bev. She was the prettiest girl he’d ever met, and everything had just gotten a lot easier. 

Richie opened his eyes and decided that this was finally the place where he would show her that. They hadn’t kissed — ever —  but he just figured she was waiting for the right moment. Well, if there was any location, this would be it. 

“Bev,” he said, feeling like he was breaking a trance. She stood back abruptly, shaking her head slightly. “Want to, um?” His words were failing him. That never happened, but he felt like Bill as he tried to force out a romantic way to ask if she would like to makeout a bit.

If he had turned his head a little, he would have noticed Eddie staring at him, his face pale and tight. He would have watched him take a deep breath and make his way back down the staircase, as light on his feet as a ghost. 

Instead he was preoccupied with gesturing to a wooden bench placed behind them, clearly meant for couples. He was watching Bev’s face as she sat down, clearly confused. 

He was leaning in to press his lips against hers. 

Right as they connected, Bev jerked back with a stunned look on her face. “Richie, what the fuck are you doing?”

“What the fuck do you mean, what the fuck am I doing?” Richie’s tone matched hers exactly for the level of confusion. 

“We’re alone,” she said slowly.

He didn’t understand what she was dancing around, but there was a cold feeling in his chest, like he’d swallowed an ice cube slowly making its way into his guts. “Couples are supposed to do a lot more than we do when we’re alone!”

“Yeah,  _ real _ couples!” 

The ice cube got lower. “Who the fuck says we’re not a real couple?”

Bev stared at him, her eyes wide. “Richie…”

He felt like he was going to throw up. She didn’t want to kiss him, fine, sure, that was almost a relief, but he couldn’t understand why she would try to get rid of him like this. Maybe he wasn’t the best boyfriend, but breakups led to friend groups taking sides and it was inevitable that they would all go with Bev. Who the fuck would pick Trashmouth as a friend?

Against the rising panic, he picked anger. He stood up, glaring down at her and spitting out, “Look, I get if you don’t want to kiss me but don’t pull this bullshit. I may be a loser, but I’m not fucking stupid and if you don’t want to be my girlfriend anymore you didn’t have to wait until we got all the way up here — ”

All of a sudden, Bev was standing too. She may have only come up to his chin, but the intensity in her eyes instantly cut off the rest of his rambling. Logically, his height should have been scary, but he had no chance in hell of actually intimidating Beverly Marsh. 

“Sit down.” Her voice was firm. He sat. 

She sat too, rubbing the bridge of her nose in exactly the same way Stan tended to. 

“I — ” He didn’t know what he was going to say next. An apology?

“Beep beep Richie,” she said without opening her eyes, “I really hate that I have to have this conversation with you.”

He stayed silent. 

Finally, she looked at him. “Richie, you’re gay. I thought you knew that.”

The panic returned with a vengeance so intense he knew this was when he was actually going to throw up. His vision blurred and the air suddenly felt too thick to properly breathe. He thought, unbidden, of Eddie’s inhaler and the comforting reassurance he felt keeping a backup in his own pocket. 

Bev was still staring at him.

“Ask your mom if she thinks I’m gay,” was the only thing he could think to say, but even to his own ears his voice sounded cracked and panicked.

“I don’t need to do that, Richie.” And he could hear Bill in her placating tone. “Did you really not know?”

He couldn’t look at her anymore. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t listen to her give voice to all of the things he knew were going to kill him someday.

Because she was right. And he knew that all along. The denial ran deep, even to himself, but he knew he could only keep it up for so much time. But repressing all of that down to the point where his monologue was just a nonstop ramble about pussies and tits was for his own good, really. He knew what happened to boys like him in Derry. 

But he was good. He didn’t let himself slip and imagine what it would be like to kiss a boy. He had a girlfriend. He —

He lay awake at night because the reality that he was leaving Eddie behind in a scant few months made him want to die. 

“Bev — .” And evidently how choked his voice sounded was enough for her to gently pull him down so his head lay on her lap. The feel of her fingers scrubbing through his hair was, to his horror, enough of a comfort for him to start crying. 

“Oh, baby,” she murmured quietly, panic clear in her green eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“Yeah, you seem real comfortable with all of this,” he croaked out. “Why did you date me, Bev?”

Bev was silent for a few minutes, rubbing at his stubborn tears. “It helped my reputation too, and I knew you wouldn’t expect things of me that I-. That I couldn’t give. When we started I thought we had an understanding.”

“What, you’d help me look straight and I would take you off the market?”

“Yeah,” she returned to scratching at his scalp. “I’m sorry, Richie. I really thought you knew.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“I know.” But her shoulders relaxed slightly. 

“I'm sorry for trying to kiss you.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” 

The silence this time was more comfortable. Bev continued running her fingers through his hair and Richie could feel himself relaxing. Bev knew. Bev knew but it was fine. She wasn’t disgusted or running away. He could still trust her not to tell anyone. 

“I’m in love with Eddie.”

It was a relief to say, but still felt like a dare. Like Richie was pushing her to the point where she’d take her delicate hands and drive her thumbs into his eyes. 

But there wasn’t even a pause in her soothing motions. “I know. When we get back to Derry I’ll steal some of Mike’s shitty vodka for you.”

He let out a long breath. “Does this still count as cheating on you?”

“Yep,” she said, “so I’m getting all your terrible shirts in the divorce.”

“But won’t you be so overcome by the sight of me shirtless that you’ll just have to take me back?”

She laughed and he couldn’t help but smile. He had no idea what the hell to do next. But girlfriend or not, she’d always be his best girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay but how would you, a teenage girl, tell your fake boyfriend he's gay? answer in the comments


	4. the example he sets is a first-class ticket to nowhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new tags for this chapter!

“You should tell him,” Bev said quietly after a few peaceful minutes, pushing down on his shoulder with a surprising amount of strength to prevent him from jumping up from her lap. “You should tell Eddie that you love him.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Richie responded loudly, struggling uselessly for a second before giving up. Fuck, he needed to work out more. 

“What, you’re just going to pine for the rest of the summer?”

“It’s worked for me so far!”

“You didn’t even know that’s what you were doing!”

“That’s how good at it I was!”

Bev threw her hands up, letting Richie roll himself off the bench gracelessly. “Fuck, Trashmouth, maybe I just want you to try and be happy!”

Richie scrambled to his feet so he could pace. “He’s not gay, Bev. He’s abso-fucking-lutely not gay and he doesn’t like me like that — ”

“You don’t know that for sure — ”

“And,” he said louder, cutting her off, “ _ and, _ even if Eddie was gay and he somehow hit his head hard enough to be convinced to come anywhere  _ near _ whatever the hell I’ve got going on — ” he gestured to the whole six-foot-one of gangly limbs and bruises from smacking said gangly limbs on anything that stood still long enough. 

Bev made an offended noise, which, fair. He had just insulted her fake taste in fake boyfriends. 

“Which at this point is a long shot the equivalent of hitting Mars with a baseball, we’d still only have this summer because he is staying in  _ Derry. _ ” The vitriol in the last word was enough to cover the crack in his voice. 

“People do long-distance, Richie.”

“Like his mom is ever going to let him talk to us when we’re gone. She’s going to cut the fucking phone lines and keep him trapped in that house until the day he dies,” Richie practically spat out the words, “we’re leaving him behind to rot with her, Bev.”

Her face went cold in a way he only saw when she thought about her dad. He had been in jail since they were kids, but even all the years spent with her aunt and an expensive therapist hadn’t fully dimmed how furious she would get. 

“We all agreed that this was his choice,” she said, even though her tone made it very clear what she thought of the choice he’d made, “but I just think he deserves to know all of the facts.”

Richie shook his head aggressively, letting his hair hit him in the face. “I really don’t think I’m enough of an incentive.” The honesty hurt, as it tended to without any jokes to mask it. 

“But you don’t know that unless you tell him,” Bev pointed out, “and as much as you’re going to be miserable if Eddie turns you down, you are going to be the absolute worst to live with if you’re still stuck in these pining what-ifs. And if there is even a chance we could convince Eddie to come with us, I’m willing to make you.”

“So this is entirely selfish then.”

“Yes!” Bev threw her hands up, “Of course it is, I suck at these sorts of things. Why couldn’t you have had your emotional breakthrough with Bill, or Ben?”

“The whole point was that I didn’t try to kiss them!”

“Did you want to kiss them?”

Richie pointed at her, feeling as if he’d lost the plot a little. “Everyone has had a crush on Big Bill! It doesn’t count!”

Bev tilted her head to concede the point before refocusing. It was so easy for the two of them to get dragged down in an endless, circular conversation based solely on how alike they were. And Bev clearly hated that, out of all of them, she had to be the one to tell her boyfriend that he was gay. 

But she was set on this, Richie could tell. It made his pulse race.

“Tell Eddie,” she said firmly, “before we leave.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Oh, Richie,” and now her tone was so gentle that it hurt, “you’re so much braver than you think.”

At that, she stood up and made her way to the stairs. “Let’s go find him.”

Richie scrubbed his hands over his face, not wanting to think about how puffy his eyes must be. Maybe he could tell Eddie he was allergic to lighthouse dust. “Yeah, okay.”

“And Richie?” He looked over to see her raise one pale eyebrow. “Stop being a pussy.”

He couldn’t help but laugh, all the way to the bottom of the lighthouse.

That was where things, impossible as it seemed, went even more to shit. 

“Where’s Eddie?” Bev asked, confused.

He wasn’t on the other side of the lighthouse. He wasn’t in the gift shop. He wasn’t in view of the street down from the hill. 

Eddie was gone, and their confusion turned quickly to concern and then panic. 

“Did he just go back to the car?” Bev asked, out of breath. They had separated to check everywhere again, but there was no sign of him. Richie couldn’t stop gripping at his hair, feeling like he was going to buzz out of his skin. 

“Would he do that?” he said, aware of how frantic he sounded. 

“Well, maybe if he needed something, like his med bag if he got hurt — ” Bev cut herself off, eyes widening at whatever she saw on Richie’s face. 

“Okay, okay,” Richie said, trying to move past the mental image of Eddie hurt, “I can go back and check, you can stay… did you hear that?”

There was no one else around them save the lethargic gift shop employee. In the quiet and the sound of the waves, Richie could still hear the faint sound of someone calling out. 

Carefully, the two of them made their way towards the voice. At the edge of the hill there was a small wooden gate.

He could hear Bev breathe out a curse before he immediately hopped the low fence. She needed a second to stand on the lower level first but soon she was back at his side, picking their way along the path. 

On one side, there was a narrow cliff off of the path. Richie felt his blood run cold and they rushed over silently. Thankfully, the fall was only a few feet and at the bottom, curled up against a rock, was Eddie Kaspbrak. 

“Eddie!’ Bev called out, but Richie still felt frozen.

Eddie was splayed out, one arm tucked around his midsection and the other stretched out and sickeningly misshapen. When he looked up, there were tear tracks along his face and Richie felt his heart crack. 

It didn’t take long to scale down the minor cliff to reach Eddie. Richie still felt like it took too long before he was crouched in front of Eddie, reaching out to cup his face in trembling hands. 

“Eddie, are you okay?” Richie asked urgently, scanning his face. 

Eddie didn’t push him away, but his eyes were glassy. 

“I fell and my arm is probably broken,” Eddie said. His voice was calm, “it hurts.”

“ _ Fuck, _ ” Richie said with feeling, “can you get up on my back?”

Eddie nodded, a little stilted since his face was still encased in Richie’s hands.

It took some maneuvering, but Richie had been giving Eddie piggy-back rides since the first grade. The feeling of Eddie’s one arm around his neck should have been comforting. All he knew was that through the press of their bodies he could feel Eddie wincing as his wrist was jostled and he could almost feel the phantom pains through his own arm.

It wasn’t a long trip back, but even in the brief climb Richie could feel Eddie starting to shake against his back. Bev was there by the cliff edge, kneeling down so her bright hair framed her worried face. She carefully pulled Eddie up by his forearm and shoulder, muscles tensing in her own skinny arms, setting him down before extending a hand to boost Richie. 

The three of them lay there for a second, breathing. The sky was still as bright overhead, the clouds as picturesque as any painting. All of Richie’s limbs felt impossibly heavy as the adrenaline drained away. 

Richie moved first, rolling over to look at his arm. It was bent in a way that was more than a little nauseating. Every cell in Richie’s body suddenly itched to reach out and snap it back into place. To take his delicate bones in his hand and fit him back together. 

Instead, he watched Bev push herself up in a sitting position.“Are you okay? What happened?” she asked. 

Eddie squinted up at her. “I wanted to see the trail and I fell. I think,” he took a deep breath, “I think my arm is broken. I caught myself on it and I felt something snap.”

“Fuck, Eddie,” and Bev sounded distraught, “we were so worried.”

“Not as worried as my mother’s going to be,” Eddie said dreamily and began to laugh. It wasn’t a happy laugh. 

Eddie sat up abruptly, almost knocking into Bev where she was hovering over him.“Fuck. My mom.”

He knew it was a bad idea, but Richie still had to open his mouth and say: “Dude, I’ve been trying.”

“Fuck you,” Eddie hissed, suddenly furious. His face had gone pale and tight and Richie could feel the familiar swoop of having supremely fucked up. Him and Eddie got mad at each other daily, but they never, ever  _ meant _ it. Yelling over which X-Man would win in a fight and bickering over the hammock produced a very different sort of angry Eddie than the one currently glaring at him. 

“My mom’s going to find out,” Eddie continued, “she’s going to see my arm and she’s going to —  she’s going to  _ lock me in my room forever. _ I proved her right. I can’t even handle a day without her. And for what?”

“Look — ” Bev tried. She was curled in on herself like she was bracing for impact. 

“For a  _ useless _ trip that you should have done without me. If you just wanted to fuck your girlfriend, there was no need to drag me into it. You should have just left me at home where I was safe.”

It wasn’t as if the words were harsh. Richie had heard worse. He had heard worse from Eddie, even. No, what hurt like a physical blow was the cadence of Sonia Kaspbrak, as clear as if Richie was impersonating her himself. 

And that Richie couldn’t be sure that Eddie didn’t actually believe what he was saying. 

Eddie looked at him dead-on, the fury draining out of him in favour of exhaustion. “Fuck you, Richie. I hope you had fun today. We’ll be lucky if I ever get to see you again.”

Richie wanted to protest. He wanted to say that Eddie was exaggerating, that there was no way his mom could ban them forever, that she would just be happy that he was okay and eventually ease up on restrictions. But he knew better. And he only found it easy to lie about himself; he couldn’t lie about Eddie’s misery. 

Gingerly, he and Bev got Eddie to his feet, trying not to wince as he clearly took a step away from the two of them. The desperate craving to reach out and help was back, but the stony look on his face put a stop to any physical contact Richie wanted. 

At the walk-in clinic, Eddie filled out his medical information meticulously as Bev put down her aunt’s insurance information. It was an empty gesture, but it meant they might have a few more hours as the receptionist called her instead of Mrs. Kaspbrak. 

When the nurse called Eddie in, both Bev and Richie stood to go with him. He turned his head to glare at them so ferociously that they both sat down, chastised. They had to watch as the nurse escorted him, less gently than they had. 

“He’ll be fine,” Bev said as he walked out of sight. 

Richie pushed his glasses up in his hair so he could properly bury his face in his hands. “We’re so fucked.”


	5. you get a nervous mother, you could end up in a doctor's office

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BLM. donate to bail funds and never trust cops.

Eddie was not fine, technically speaking. 

His arm hurt, in bright pulses that matched his heartbeat. The pain probably should have alarmed him, but in of itself he found it bizarrely comforting — he could look down and see his bone jutting out, proof that the worst had happened and he could stop worrying about it. 

Plus, the angle it made was fascinating. He would have reached out to poke at it but he wasn’t sure when the nurse was coming back. 

Unfortunately, the pain could only distract him so much from how his mother was going to react when he got home. 

Eddie closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. She had been right all along. He had gotten hurt, because he was too delicate for days like this. He was too weak.

He knew she would blame Bev and Richie. And he had too, for a split second as the ground fell away. He had blamed Richie’s impulsiveness and his apparently compulsive need for attention. There was no other logical reason for why he had worked so hard to drag Eddie out on a day-long date with his girlfriend. 

But it wasn’t his fault Eddie had run out at the first sight of them sitting together and hadn’t stopped running until his arm snapped. 

He couldn’t blame Richie. And, as much as a tiny, jealous part of himself wanted so badly to, there was yet to be anything that could make him dislike Beverly Marsh. 

But his mom was right. She wasn’t right about who’s fault it was, but Eddie was a fragile, sickly boy and he had been deluding himself that he could keep up with them. That he could have free days with his friends.

He had been deluding himself about a lot of things.

The tears threatening to spill from his eyes had nothing to do with the physical pain, but that was clearly what the nurse thought when she walked back into the examination room with some very confusing accusations. 

“I am taking this seriously!” Eddie insisted again, his frustrations only met with a bored expression from the nurse, “My goddamn arm is broken, how much more seriously do you need me to take this? Do you need me to —.”

She cut him off expertly, thrusting his filled-out chart in his face. “All I need from you, kid, is to fill this out without screwing around this time.”

“What are you talking about?” he repeated. He glanced over his chart, but everything looked normal. 

“Some of these,” one long, painted fingernail tapped his prescription list, “can’t be taken together or you’d be in way worse shape than you are now. And some of these are clearly made up. I don’t know what kind of weird prank this is, but fill out another sheet so I can get a cast on you and get you out of this office.”

Eddie stared at the paper and his handwriting, as familiar as the list of medications. He had been taking them for years. The nurse — her name tag said Greta — must be wrong somehow. 

Looking up at her, he tried to keep his voice at a less antagonistic level. “This isn’t a prank. Go get,” he swallowed against his sudden need to see Richie, to have someone reassure him he wasn’t crazy, “the girl I came in with. Redhead. She can get my bag from my car.”

Greta rolled her eyes, but she did leave the room. 

She was gone long enough that Eddie started to wonder if she was punishing him and was instead just sipping coffee in the staff room until the crazy kid got bored and left. But just as he was starting to wonder if he was going to have to get Richie to tape up a sling until they could find another clinic, she came back in, with both his medical bag and a doctor.

The doctor was holding a few of his prescription bottles and the expression on her face made Eddie’s stomach clench. This wasn’t the look he usually saw on doctors, of someone humouring his mother until they gave in to tests in order to get her out of their waiting room. This was the face of someone who was actually concerned. 

She took a seat across from Eddie and said, in a calming voice, “Why don’t you tell me your medication routine?”

As he rattled off the list of pills he took in the morning, after breakfast, after dinner and before bed, Greta started to cast up his arm. It didn’t take too long, but it did make him wince. He was starting to think maybe this whole thing was just something they did as a distraction with patients, to keep their mind off their shattered limbs. 

Or maybe they were wasting time until they could tell him he was dying. 

He really wished he could twist his fingers. Instead, the nervous energy was making him bounce his leg in a way that was clearly annoying the nurse.

The doctor —  Dr. White, according to  _ her _ name tag — was silent for a few minutes after Eddie finished talking. She was holding one of his prescription bottles up to the light, moving it back and forth. 

“Mr. Kaspbrak,” she began, and he felt very grownup before realizing that was probably exactly why she did that, “your name is on all of these bottles. Greta called your pharmacy and they stated that you haven’t filled any new prescriptions in years.”

“But,” Eddie said, deeply confused, “my mother picks up my meds every week.”

The doctor hummed a little. Eddie could feel the tell-tale signs of anxiety curling deep in his stomach. 

“This is an unprecedented situation for me, Mr. Kaspbrak,” Dr. White said slowly, and he wanted so badly for her to stop there, because doctors didn’t say that unless something was deeply wrong. 

Dr. White held out his pill bottle. “These are sugar pills. We briefly analysed your other pills, and none match the label. Most seem to be sugar pills, some are OTC vitamins. One was a bottle of Ibuprofen. We,” at this she shot a glance at Greta, “thought there might be an illegal reason for this, but there is also a record of an extraordinary amount of doctor and specialist appointments in your medical file.”

Eddie found it hard to listen to her, the phrase ‘sugar pills’ echoing in his brain until everything else started to feel very far away. The room, the doctor’s voice, everything. Dr. White was talking again, soothingly, and he wanted to force himself to listen but it was like he was floating above his body.

“...testing we can do,” Dr. White was saying, flipping through a chart, “if you wanted some real medical information. You’re over eighteen, but I have some pull with the youth shelter if you’d rather stay there than with a friend.”

“What are you talking about?” Eddie croaked out. 

Dr. White looked at him, her dark eyes wide.

“I want to go home,” he said, and to his distant horror his voice sounded like an upset child. 

“But Eddie,” the doctor said quietly, “your mother has had you on fake medications for a decade.”

She sounded like Bill did when he talked about his mother. And Bev and Mike. And Richie. They all knew that she didn’t treat him normally. They all knew he was miserable. But he still thought that she had his best interests at heart. 

But this?

He looked at the pills she was holding, the medication that had ruled his daily life for as long as he could remember. And Eddie freeingly, beautifully, let himself float away. 

~

Richie didn’t want to think about what was happening. 

The first bad sign had been when a doctor came out to pull Bev aside, for the second time, into a different room to explain that if it was up to her Eddie would not go near his mother again. 

Richie didn’t get the chance to tell her that he fully agreed. 

There was an extra level of crazy involved in faking her son’s medications for years, but deep down he wasn’t that surprised. He teased and he joked, but there was a deep core of fear to the amount of control she kept over Eddie. Something like this wasn’t impossible for someone like her. 

But fuck, he could remember Eddie taking those same meds all the way back to kindergarten. Multiple times a day, every day, little rattling pills in orange bottles. 

Richie felt sick. 

He hadn’t needed Bev’s tense expression to realise that Eddie would not be okay. The doctor seemed very reluctant to release him, but apparently all he would say to her and the nurses was that he wanted to go home. 

Eddie had always been stubborn. 

Eddie didn’t say anything — to them, to the nurses, to the doctor when she told him they were keeping his medications for analysis and slipped him a business card with a quiet ‘be careful’. 

He didn’t say a word and the second they got him into the car he collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut. 

“Eddie? Eddie!” Both of them yelling at him did absolutely nothing to snap him out of the open-eyed coma he dropped himself into. He didn’t even wince. Eddie just stared at the ceiling of the car, limbs loose and eyes glazed over. 

“Fuck,” Richie said with feeling, tugging on his hair, “do we take him back inside? What do we do?”

Eddie reacted to none of this, but Bev looked at him, panic evident in her wide eyes. “He wants to go home, Richie.”

And there was nothing he could say to that. He let her carefully tuck herself in the back seat, lifting Eddie (with no reaction) so she could lay his head on her lap and place her hand in his hair, much like she had done with Richie. 

He had to tip his head back so he didn't start crying, but Richie got in the driver’s seat anyway. And then he started to drive towards Derry. 


	6. les jeux sont faits

The car would have been silent, if not for Bev humming quietly in the backseat. When Richie looked in his mirror, he could see how gently she was running her hands through Eddie’s hair. 

He couldn’t stop glancing at the backseat. Normally, this would make Eddie snap at him to keep his eyes on the road and didn’t he know the most recent driving accident statistics…

But he didn’t. Because Eddie was lying still, eyes open, like a porcelain doll. And Richie needed to keep looking back for the reassurance that his chest was still moving under his stark-white cast. He needed to keep checking that his best friend was still breathing or he was going to go insane. 

Bev was trying to talk now, murmuring comforting words and occasional pleas for him to wake up. Richie thought absently that he wasn’t asleep, really. They hadn’t seen anything like this before but Eddie was clearly, on some level, choosing to take the time to deal with this by himself. 

That didn’t mean that Richie could actually handle it. 

“Eddie, blink if you understand me,” Bev repeated from the backseat.

Evidently, it didn’t work because the next thing he heard was Bev’s voice crack as she said “This is my fault. This was my idea. I should have talked to Richie before this — ”

He didn’t want to listen to that. Bev tried so hard, everyday, to seem like she was fine, but her father had left scars on her. And the toxic guilt complex was one of those. 

Richie abruptly yanked the steering wheel, screeching to a stop by the side of the road. 

“Jesus — ” Bev exclaimed, grabbing on to Eddie to prevent him from being jostled. 

“We’re switching,” Richie announced, hopping out to yank open her door, “go drive us home, Ringwald.” 

When she got out, she was carefully avoiding touching him.

She moved the driver’s seat up while Richie ever-so-gently cupped the back of Eddie’s head to set him back down on his lap. His hair felt so soft and Richie could feel the delicate curve of his skull on his fingertips. 

“Hey,” he said quietly as the car started up again. Eddie was still staring up at him, unseeing. Richie brushed his thumb against his cheekbone. Something hungry in the pit of his chest ached with the familiar longing to kiss him, but there wasn’t even a question of giving in. “How’re you doing?”

No answer, but he expected that. 

“It’s okay, Eddie,” he said softly. Another brush of his thumb. “I’ve got you, Eds. Take all the time you need.”

Outside the window, the Maine countryside flew by in a haze of green and blue. Bev tapped her fingers along the steering wheel to a pattern only she understood. And Richie found himself, predictably, talking. 

Not to Bev, who was staring out the windshield and giving absolutely no indication that she was listening. Eddie, for all intents and purposes, was comatose. But Richie couldn’t help letting his mouth run away from him in the slightest chance that Eddie was actually hearing him. 

So Richie started narrating their route, the scenery, Bev’s driving (he got flipped off for some of his less flattering remarks, so she was at least listening a little) before gradually switching to describing the new comic he got last week that he knew Eddie hadn’t read yet. If there was anything that could annoy Eddie into a reaction, it was spoilers. 

When that didn’t work, he switched to rating the movies they’d snuck into over the last few months in order of how much they made Eddie look like he wanted to puke. Although that might have been the off-brand snacks stashed in their pockets. 

“For such a teeny tiny little guy,” Richie informed him, “you can sure eat a shit-ton of candy.”

He talked about the stuff he was going to write on Eddie’s cast. There were a ton of dirty limericks he had memorized from joke magazines that were just begging to be scrawled along his cast when he couldn’t hit Richie for it. And Eddie tended to hit hard if he couldn’t just wiggle away. 

But he didn’t have a marker, lucky for Eddie’s dignity.

“But I’d say something nice on it, somewhere,” Richie found himself admitting, “something small. Get well soon? Maybe just a genuine Richie Tozier autograph. That’s going to be worth big bucks in a few years, Eds. I’d say you should keep it, but I’ve been around casts before,” broken bones were no stranger to Richie, that’s for sure, “and they start to smell like literal ass after a few weeks. Although maybe you’re immune to awful smells, you do live with your mother.”

Frustratingly, he found that even joking about Eddie’s mother threatened to make him angry. And that probably wasn’t a good idea right now. 

“But you don’t need to keep your ass-cast. I can give you more autographs. As many as you want, Eds. Fuck, I’ll give myself carpal tunnel so we can match.” Distantly, Richie could recognize his own voice getting softer and slower. “And if you come find me when we’re grown up, I’ll give you piles and piles of autographs. I’d give you anything you want, Eds.”

He looked out the window, unable to face Eddie head on. Even like this, he was a coward. “I wish I could take you with us. I think I want that more than I’ve wanted anything before. So this is a promise. If you’re not going to leave now, at least let me ask you to come find us after. I promise, Eds, if you do that I’ll try my best to make you happy. However I can.”

There was silence in the car. Richie took a slow breath, thinking only of the feeling of Eddie’s hair between his fingers and the green of the trees passing them by. 

Eddie jerked up so abruptly that Richie only narrowly avoided getting hit in the face. Bev shrieked in the front seat from shock, swerving briefly before righting the car. 

“Pull over,” Eddie’s voice was as strong as ever, “pull over right now, Beverly.”

She did what he asked, pulling over to the side of the road. Before either of them could get over their shock, Eddie had managed to fumble the handle with one hand and was out the door, full-on sprinting down the side of the road. 

Bev and Richie both watched him run, speechless. 

“Uh,” Richie managed, watching the figure of the boy he was in love with run off into the woods, “What the fuck?”

Bev was already wrestling with her seatbelt, swearing as the lock stuck. She seemed fully prepared to go tackle Eddie to the ground like a footballer.

“Bev! Let me handle this.” Richie said. Bev hesitated, but nodded and Richie scrambled out of the safety of the car and in the vague direction that Eddie had taken off. 

The sun was just starting to lower in the sky, giving everything a softer glow than the blazing sun earlier in the day. It got darker as Richie descended through the trees, the leaves ahead giving everything a slightly muffled feeling as he ran after his best friend.

It was only a few minutes of chase, thankfully, before Richie found himself in a clearing. It was clearly less than natural, as in the distance he could see a picnic area, as well as a small building that must have been a gift shop. 

And, looming up above him like a giant of yore, was a garishly painted statue two stories tall. To his immense relief, Eddie was sitting at the base of it with his knees tucked up against his cast. 

Richie picked his way over to sit next to Eddie, keeping one wary eye on the statue. 

There was a moment of quiet. 

“Is that supposed to be Paul Bunyan?” Richie asked him. 

Seemingly despite himself, the corner of Eddie’s mouth twitched. 

“Because I’ve gotta say, I’ve never seen a Paul Bunyan with orange hair before,” Richie continued, “and based on the colour of his eyes it looks like he’s found a supplier for giant-sized weed.” 

There was silence for a minute. 

“Hey do you think his dick — ”

“Did you mean it?”

Richie stared at Eddie, not sure which of the many, many stupid things he’d said over the last hour Eddie meant. 

“That you want to take me with you,” Eddie elaborated, not willing to wait for Richie to figure it out himself. 

Part of him wanted to downplay it, to deny everything and play it off like he’d been doing since they were kids. It brushed up against a raw nerve: Richie never wanted to go anywhere without him.

“Yeah, Eddie Spaghetti,” he said. His voice was more like a croak. “I meant every word.”

“I — You— Why—” Eddie seemed at a loss for words. Richie was just opening his mouth to tease him about his impersonation of Bill, but Eddie threw up his hand, leaned in and pressed his lips against his. 

Richie would never admit it, but he squeaked. For a second, it was awful. His mouth was half open and Eddie’s lips were more pressed against his buck teeth than anything else. 

But then Eddie started to pull away and the panic at that snapped him out of the shock. He brought his hands up to tangle back in that soft hair and softly returned the kiss at a new angle. The slide of their mouths together felt like little jolts, like the twitchiness he’d felt all day had finally found their grounding and it was Eddie Kapsbrak’s lips and hands, carefully cupping his cheeks. 

They kissed and for the first time in a long time Richie felt himself fully relax. He was supported by the press of Eddie’s shoulder against his and his hands holding up. Ironically, all he wanted to do was go boneless and melt into him forever. 

Eventually, mutually, they separated. There was still a string of spit connecting his mouth to Eddie’s and when he looked at it Richie felt the sparks under his skin return, threatening to set him on fire. 

“Fuck,” Eddie said lowly and Richie let a wide grin split his face. 

“Fuck,” he agreed.

Eddie slowly, carefully, buried his face in Richie’s shoulder. Richie, revelling in the freedom, wrapped him up in his arms, careful of his cast. 

The simple sensation of Eddie’s breath on his collarbone made him feel like he was going to float away. The overwhelming feelings made him want to pour out every inch of the longing that had suffocated him, to gut himself on the grass in front of Eddie and Paul Bunyan and finally let Eddie see him. 

“You’re so much funnier than me, Eds,” he murmured, “you’re so funny but you still laugh at all my jokes. Everytime I make one when you’re not around it makes me miss the sound of your laughter. Every stupid joke I’ve made in the last, fuck, decade has been to try and make you laugh.”

“Don’t blame your jokes on me,” Eddie sounded muffled from where he was still pressed against his shoulder. 

“I can’t help it, sweetheart,” Richie said and he was rewarded with a full body shudder at the pet-name, “you’re so cute, cute, cute. I see your face and all I want to do is make you laugh,” his voice softens as he tips his head back to look up at the sky, “I just want to be near you all the time. Honestly, Eds, any day I don’t see you smile feels wasted. I think,” he swallowed, “I think I’ve loved you for a long time.”

He’s expecting him to tell him off for calling him Eds in his love confession. Instead, Eddie sits back to look him in the eye. His hands came up to brush through Richie’s hair and he said, achingly soft, “It’s always been you. It’s been you since I was six years old and you had to hold my hand to coax me out to recess.” The words flowed out of him like a reflex, like a natural act he had been choking down for too long. 

Then, with a blinding grin, he added: “Dumbass.”

Richie feels his own face split into a matching grin. The floating feeling was back, settling in his stomach. He honestly couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t have to push down thoughts of how nice it would be to press closer to Eddie, to wrap around him, and now he didn’t have to hesitate. 

“I knew you would be like a goddamn octopus,” Eddie said as Richie tugged him back into his arms, but he sounded fond, “just limbs everywhere.” 

Richie wiggled his eyebrows, but his face was pressed against Eddie’s hair so he’s not sure the full effect could be appreciated. “Am I a tenta-cool octopus at least?” He asked, just to hear Eddie sputter indignantly against his shoulder and try to squirm away to smack him. He tightened his grip, laughing as he protested “No, no I’m done! I promise, don’t go.”

“Did you get that out of a fucking joke book?” Eddie griped, but he stopped struggling. Not that he ever really was. “That was so lame.”

“Yeah, but you love me.” Richie said cheerfully and the fact that it wasn’t really a joke this time made him want to seriously try and serenade Eddie from the top of the horrifying Paul Bunyan statue. 

“Of course,” Eddie said, “but you’ve never been very tenta-cool.”

Richie cackled, long and hard. From the little of Eddie’s face he could see, he looked very pleased. 

The sun was starting to dip under the horizon when Eddie said, reluctantly, “we should probably head back.”

“Yeah,” Richie sighed, slowly letting go, “Bev’s probably going crazy.”

Eddie froze, an expression of horror flashing across his face. “Bev. Fuck.”

“She knows,” Richie said quickly, correctly interpreting his expression, “she, um. She thought I knew I was gay and we were in a some sort of arrangement. She kind of — ” he made a face, not sure how to explain their earlier yelling match. 

Eddie grinned, looking relieved. “I bet that was a fun conversation.”

Richie groaned. “I think if she knew how in denial I was she would have made Bill do it.”

“But then you tried to kiss her,” Eddie said, stretching as he got to his feet. 

“Yeah.” Richie would feel bad about staring at the line of skin that showed as Eddie’s shirt rode up, but he was theoretically allowed to stare now. 

“So she panicked,” he said, “understandable. Fuck, Richie, I wish you had picked a fake girlfriend I could have actually disliked, it would have made my life a lot easier. ”

“Yeah, it’s hard to hate Bev.” 

“I tried! Very briefly! And then she made a joke about you looking like a muppet and I was back in.”

“She does call me a muppet a lot,” Richie said, almost dreamily. He was so glad he didn’t really have to break up with her. 

“Hey, which of the muppets do you think you could take in a fight? Or would they just accept you as one of their own?”

Richie laughed, bumping his shoulder against his. They were out of the woods now, metaphorically and literally. The car was back in sight, with Bev’s calves dangling out of the driver’s seat window. 

“I'm postponing that argument for now, Eds. Let’s go see if Bev’s succumbed to heatstroke.”

“Dodging the question, I see.” Eddie grinned up at him and Richie didn’t care what he had to do, he was going to find some way to keep that smile in his life. And now that was looking to be a lot easier than before. 

For a second, he had the oddest urge to turn around and flip off that creepy Paul Bunyan statue with both hands. But that urge, full of it was of triumphant spite, passed, and he put his arm around Eddie’s shoulder to pull him close. It felt right, deep in his bones. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every chapter I complained about these idiots not kissing each other and every chapter I remembered that I was the author
> 
> really hope you are all continuing to donate, educate and support a dismantling of the unjust justice system so we can build something better


	7. only the meek get pinched. the bold survive

At first, the word Richie would have used to describe the mood in the car was ‘jubilant’, from Bill’s word-a-day-calendar that Richie relentlessly mocked. 

Bev had been curled up in the front seat chain-smoking by the time they got back, and uncharacteristically for her, she bolted out to wrap Eddie in a tight hug. When Richie joked about his second kiss of the day going a lot better, she shrieked and tackled him instead, letting herself be scooped up and swung around like a ragdoll. 

Every time he looked over at him, Eddie was smiling, bright and happy against the setting sun. Richie felt vaguely blinded, tangling their fingers together until he felt giddy with relief and joy. Eddie was also delighted to discover that simply by brushing their knees together he could abruptly cut Richie off from whatever dirty joke was halfway out of his mouth, and he did so liberally to the amusement of Bev.

But the closer they got to Derry, the more Eddie seemed to withdraw into himself. He grew quieter and quieter, staring out the window with a pinched expression on his face. It would have made Richie panic, if not for the fact that he was still tightly holding Richie’s hand. Instead, Richie just wordlessly caught Bev’s eye.

“Dinner,” she announced to the silent car, “I’m hungry.” At that, she turned into the parking lot of one of the saddest roadside diners Richie had ever seen. 

But burgers and milkshakes were burgers and milkshakes. And the fries were worth it, even if Eddie absently stole half his plate and Bev was too quick to sneak some from, smacking his hand every time it inched too close. 

Eddie was even smiling again, even if he was way too quiet for his liking.

It wasn’t until they finished eating and Bev kicked him in the shins that Richie felt secure enough to bring it up. He had been lulled by how Eddie kept brushing his good arm against his and his grin when Richie had flopped dramatically against him and made a crack about animal magnetism. 

“So, Eddie—,” Richie tried to begin. 

“Bathroom break and then we get going?” He cut him off, looking around for the waitress. 

They didn’t have another chance to bring it up before they were back in the car and Eddie had gone eerily silent again. Richie was driving this time, which was probably risking all their lives with how much he kept glancing at Eddie in the passenger's seat. Bev had passed out quickly though, her head lolling against a t-shirt she had bundled up as a pillow. 

The sun had finished setting while they were in the diner and the night was dark enough that the car felt suspended in space, illuminated only by the headlights. 

It should have felt peaceful. But Richie could feel the dread of every single mile passing by as they got closer and closer to the end of the drive. He was terrified that Eddie still regretted it. He was terrified of what the silence could mean. He was terrified of what might happen next. 

Bev woke up when they passed the cheery ‘Welcome to Derry!’ sign. She propped herself forward to rest her cheek against Eddie’s headrest, sleep-muffled and murmured, “Eddie, are you coming to stay with me? I called my aunt from the payphone this morning so she won’t be mad.”

Eddie simply reached over to turn on the radio and said, firmly enough that they didn’t question it, “We should drop you off first, Bev.” 

Richie had to clench his fingers tight on the steering wheel to avoid saying something. 

The front lights were on when they pulled up in front of her and her aunt’s house. Wordlessly, all three of them piled out of the car to stare up at the front door, the truest sign that the day was over. 

“Okay,” Bev said, turning to Richie first, “see you on Monday, Trashmouth.” 

It’s the same thing she would say to him on any Friday evening and there’s something almost comforting in the routine after… everything. He pulled her into a crushing hug, tucking her into him in an even more familiar way. “Not if I see you first, Ringwald.” 

She hugged him back just as tightly, before stepping back.

She and Eddie were almost the same height, so when they hugged it was easy for Bev to whisper something in his ear. She pressed her forehead against his, cupping his face tenderly. It only lasted a second before she squished his cheeks, laughing as he batted her hands away. 

Then, with a brief wave and a skip up her steps, their trio was down to two. 

The drive over to Eddie’s house was completely silent. Even the radio was kept off as they drove past the dark houses and through the empty streets of Derry.

Several times, Richie got close to saying something. Eddie was biting his nails, a nervous habit he’d had since childhood despite how his mother would bemoan how sick it would make him. Every time she caught him with ragged edges, Richie knew, she’d insist that there was some sort of invisible dirt now infecting him and she’d drag him to the doctor.

The thought of Mrs. Kaspbrak made him tighten his grip on the steering wheel again and he got as far as opening his mouth to ask Eddie what the hell he was doing. The uncertainty of it all was close to killing him. The thought of dropping Eddie off to go back to his mother like everything was normal made him want to turn the car around and drive until they ran out of gas. 

But before he could say anything, the muscle memory had him parked in front of the Kaspbrak house. 

Richie stared down at his steering wheel, desperately thinking of how to unlock his tongue enough to convince Eddie not to go in there, to stay with him instead. He could sneak him in his window; Richie had been using it to climb back in after post-curfew visits to Eddie’s bedroom for years. 

Maybe he should have realized how mutual this whole pining situation was earlier. Eddie may have complained about Richie sneaking in after dark and getting all his outside germs on his sheets, but he had never once locked his window. 

When he turned his head, Eddie was watching him. His mouth was set, a familiar image. He always was a stubborn little bastard and this line of his mouth had always been the first warning that he was about to plant his heels and refuse to budge. 

It was only frightening to Richie because he didn’t know what he was set on. 

He didn’t have the chance to worry for too long: before he could open his mouth to joke about something, anything, Eddie was on him, kissing him with the force of a punch to the mouth. Richie made an embarrassing noise, but before he could dwell on that he reached for Eddie, one hand cupping the back of his head and feeling, again, how soft his hair was. The other tilted his jaw, transforming the kiss from something that felt like pent-up frustration to one that was wetter, softer and sweeter. A kiss that felt like they had all the time in the world to connect and reconnect under the streetlamp. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t true. Eddie was the one to separate, leaving Richie feeling a little dumbstruck and disheveled while he grabbed his empty med bag. With one hand on the door handle, he looked back at Richie, expression wavering somewhat. Then, to Richie’s surprise, he leaned back to place one, feather-light kiss to his cheek. 

“Wait here,” Eddie said to him, expression firm once again.

“I’ll wait for you forever, babe,” Richie said, less of a joke than he’d like. 

He nodded once and then left Richie behind in the car. 

Richie was understandably quite antsy as he watched the house. He couldn’t help switching between drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, to jiggling his knees (hard enough that he was vaguely worried about shaking the whole car) to twisting his bracelets around and around. It was just so hard to see anything going on through Mrs. Kaspbrak’s firmly shut curtains. 

A few minutes after Eddie disappeared through the front door, a light turned on behind the curtains, close enough that he could make out the shadowed figure of her armchair behind it. Richie held his breath, resisting the urge to duck his head under the window like he always did. But on the other side of the curtains, there was suddenly the unmistakable shape of an arm in a cast, gesturing out. 

He was too far away to properly hear, but even outside the house he could make out the faint sound of a raised voice, high and pleading. He couldn’t hear Eddie say anything, which either meant he wasn’t matching his mother’s volume or he wasn’t speaking at all. Both made Richie’s stomach twist. 

He thought about getting out of the car and pressing his ear to the door. He thought about bursting in, blaming himself so he’d take all the heat. He thought about pulling Eddie out of there altogether and driving far, far away. 

He thought about them so hard that, when the front door burst open, he jolted so violently that he smacked his knee on the dashboard. Eddie was full-on sprinting out the door and Richie turned the key on instinct, the roar of the car still not enough to drown out the yelling from Mrs. Kaspbrak. 

She was standing in the doorway, face twisted up in wracking sobs. “—just laying out the cards!” She half-screamed, looking manic in the way her hands gripped her elbows tightly. Richie would have been scared she would run after him, but in the blink of an eye Eddie was halfway across the yard. 

“You’ll be dead in a week without me, Eddie!” Her voice carried across the block. Richie could see other curtains twitching in the houses around them. “And where will I be then, having to bury my only son? Everything I did was to take care of you!”

By this point, Eddie was in front of the passenger door, gripping the handle with his good hand. A look passed over his face, one Richie had never seen before. A mixture of fury, sadness, and pity, all expressed in an instant. But it passed, and then Eddie was pulling himself in and tossing his backpack in the back seat, turning to Richie and spitting out a “Get me the fuck out of here.”

He absolutely did not have to be told twice. He floored it and the car made an appropriately dramatic squeal as he drove away from the Kaspbrak residence. 

The only important Kaspbrak was breathing hard in the seat next to him. Then, impossibly, Eddie started to laugh. Long and hard, head tipped back and eyes closed, he laughed and laughed until Richie had to laugh with him. 

“Jesus,” Eddie said finally, still giggling. It was impossibly cute, Richie thought. “We really gave the neighbours a show. I can’t even imagine what the gossip’s going to be like tomorrow.”

“They’ll be talking about your flight of the Kaspbrak for  _ years, _ ” Richie agreed and the image of Eddie running across the yard, jacket flying behind him and a backpack over one shoulder made him smile even wider. 

“Good,” he said fiercely, “let them. I won’t be here come September anyways.”

Richie kept his eyes on the road, trying to ignore the little bubble of hope blooming under his ribs. 

“Oh? And where are you planning on going, Eddie Spaghetti?” He said, as close to casual as he could manage. 

“Don’t be a doofus,” Eddie said, and Richie could hear the smile in his voice, “I’m going to Chicago with you and Bev.”

The bubble exploded in his chest and all he could feel was a giddy sort of relief. He parked the car with a screech, ignoring Eddie’s quick “hey!” in order to pull him into a frantic kiss, peppering more kisses all over his cheeks as Eddie laughed, too happy to squirm away.

“You’re coming with us!” Richie shouted triumphantly, not caring how late it was, “you’re coming to Chicago!” He wished he was outside so he could scoop him up, swing him around, but he settled for ruffling his hair with both hands, ignoring Eddie batting at him. 

“Alright, alright, don’t kill me before we get there,” Eddie said, but he was giggling. He looked as lit-up as Richie felt, all bright eyes and flushed cheeks. Richie wanted to yell, wanted to scream with how much he loved him. 

“I’ll try my best. Hey, you can come stay with me for the summer!” Richie let the register of his voice lower into something gravelly and robotic. “Eddie, I am your father now.”

Eddie scoffed, though Richie knew it had to be at the joke. His impression was impeccable. 

“And do you have a kiss for daddy?” Richie wiggled his eyebrows at him, still continuing with the Voice. 

Eddie scoffed harder, but he did, a brief, warm thing. Before Richie had the chance to lean back and turn it dirtier Eddie was talking again. 

“I’m not coming to stay with you, your parents are going to kill you already for coming home this late. But if you survive the night, you can come visit me at Mike’s.”

Richie felt a slight pang of disappointment at the fact that he had to let him out of his sight, but loving parents or not, Maggie and Went would seriously not approve of any of his plans. “Of course, Eds. I understand wanting to cuddle up with the pigs, the smell must make you feel right at home.”

Eddie smacked him lightly on the shoulder, but he barreled on, speaking faster now. “They’ve offered to hire me on for a few years now for help on the farm, and I could make some money to add on my college fund. And then I can probably get a job in Chicago.” 

“That sounds great, Eds,” Richie said, starting the car and driving towards the Hanlon farm, “maybe you can fix up that junker of a truck while you’re there. But don’t worry too hard about rent, it’ll be pretty cheap between the three of us.”

“Yeah,” Eddie smiled, and Richie swore he had never seen him look so dreamy before, “and it’ll be fun, but if I save someday we can get a place for just the two of us. Our own place, and you can put up all your stupid posters and I can finally get a pet.”

Richie suddenly had a crystal clear image of the future. A tiny apartment, where the heat didn’t work some days and they curled up under blankets to keep warm, pressed against each other. A ratty, grumpy cat who still let Eddie pet him while he sat on the windowsill. Richie’s records kept in milk crates, Polaroids™ of their friends tucked into old comic books and everywhere evidence of him and Eddie and the life they built around each other. 

It was breathtaking. 

“I’d love that, Eds,” Richie’s voice was soft and sweet, “I’d love that a lot.”

“Yeah.” He turned to look at him, and Richie swore that he could see the same future shining in Eddie’s eyes. “I thought you might.”

There was a lot they had to do before that. They had to graduate. They had to spend as much time as possible with the rest of their friends over the summer. They had to pack up the car with everything they owned and drive the significantly longer road trip to their new home. 

But the future stretched before them, full of promise and love. And Richie was finally ready to take it on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all, folks! thanks for coming on this journey of my very first fanfic with me. stay tuned for future stuff! love you all


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